The problem with 'vegan'

I have joined a lot of vegan Facebook pages and real-life vegan groups in order to fully immerse myself in the world of vegan and one thing that I keep noticing is - vegans are dicks. Strong wording I know, and I am trying to combat this way of thinking.

Why?

Palm oil. One of the things that have turned me off vegan's are the (constant) arguments about palm oil - join any vegan Facebook page and you will no doubt become aware of the arguments before long. The problem doesn't only lie with those 'preachy' palm oil haters (we all know it's bad, but trying to become vegan and ethical overnight takes time guys), but also those vegans that argue against the preachy. It's basically a big back-and-forth of people calling one set 'palm-oil loving murders' and the other set 'preachy know-all goody-goodies'. It gets tiring.

The words 'Vegan' and 'Omni'. The same way some vegetarian's look down on fish-eaters... some vegans look down on EVERYONE! Guys - why don't we just get all 'hippy' and do our best and stop judging others, like some people don't recycle and some people drive too much, we can't change people - but we can change the world by doing OUR best.

This > http://www.passiveaggressivenotes.com/2011/07/06/self-righteous-vegan/ <won't work!!

Angry vegans. I was at a vegan meet recently and one lady was talking about a woman who had gotten pregnant and decided to 'get rid' of her dog. I do think this is wack, but the 'angry vegan' solution was 'she had the dog first, so she should have got an abortion'. What?!?! She would rather have someone destroy an unborn child (that they wanted - pro-choice y'all) than re-home a dog? It's just so black and white to some people. Yes, the pregnant woman was bailing on her responsibility as a dog-owner but you cannot judge a situation fully from the outside; maybe she was low-energy because of the pregnancy and the dog wasn't getting walked enough, maybe the smell of her dog was causing morning sickness, maybe she had seen scary 'dog attacks kid' stories in the press and got scared...? I am not saying she was right or wrong to get rid of her dog, but she obviously thought she was doing right.


So my 'vegan manifesto' is to be nice to people - even when they are shovelling burgers into their mouths!! Buy vegan food - as it will create a demand and as a result become more readily available. Take vegan goodies to as many bake-sales, WI meetings and coffee mornings as possible - spread the word that vegan cake is yummers. Small (happy) steps!